Vietnam War Memories

A missing stranger's lingering presence

During the 1970s, more than 5million such bracelets were sold to help raise awareness of American prisoners of war and those missing in action in the Vietnam War. I purchased one in the early 1970s, when I was 16. All my friends were buying the bracelets. We couldn't wait to see what name we got.

I got Massucci.

As I would learn decades later, Air Force 1st Lt. Martin John Massucci was the co-pilot of a fighter jet that was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery over North Vietnam on Oct. 1, 1965.

Witnesses reported seeing one parachute open before the plane crashed in flames into the jungle. An immediate search-and-rescue operation was done, but no emergency beeper signals were heard, and no sign of either Massucci or the other pilot, Capt. Charles J. Scharf, was found.

Both men were listed as missing in action. Forty-one years later, despite several expeditions to the crash site, they have not been found.

Though I was no stranger to losing a loved one--my father died of a heart attack at age 42, when I was 13--I didn't comprehend the meaning behind the bracelet when I bought it. But I have thought about Massucci--Marty to his family--a lot in the last three decades.

I am now a mother and grandmother with three close relatives serving in the armed forces, including a nephew who just came home after fighting with the Army in Iraq and another flying refueling tankers in the Air Force. Nevertheless, the reality of Massucci's sacrifice, and that of his family, is still difficult to comprehend.

News reports this summer that officials had found the site in Vietnam of a Chicago-area soldier's helicopter crash in 1972, as well as the excavation of a pilot's 1968 crash site in Laos, got me thinking about contacting Massucci's family.

But I was nervous, fearing I would be opening old wounds. I need not have worried, though. His family is grateful to hear from those who remember him, said Art Massucci Jr., Marty's younger brother.

What I learned was that Massucci was curious, blessed with above-average intelligence, and he had a great sense of humor. The son of a high school football coach, he went to the University of Detroit, his father's alma mater, on a football scholarship and became an accountant after graduating in 1962.

Enlisted as war was beginning

The Vietnam War was just beginning when Massucci enlisted. He loved to fly. After completing Officers Training School, he entered the flight program at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma in 1964. He had been in Vietnam only two months when he was shot down, one month shy of his 26th birthday.

His mother, Florence Massucci, was home alone when a telegram arrived telling her that her oldest son was missing in action. She suffered a stroke a short time afterward and died three years later.

During the Cold War and early in the Vietnam War, the United States discouraged families from speaking publicly about the POW/MIA issue. Still, Massucci's father, Arthur Sr., lobbied his congressman and senators for information on his son, but he received nothing.

"My mother passed away because of this, and I saw my dad live because of it," said Art Massucci, who lives in Royal Oak, Mich., where he, Marty and their sister, Ann, grew up. "He lived to be 90, and he was a strong, strong guy. This was his focus."

Through the bracelets that bear his name, Massucci's memory has reached more people than anyone could have imagined. One of them is Robert Masucci, a California police officer who bought a bracelet when he was 14.

Chills went down his spine, he said, when he saw that the name on the bracelet was similar to his. So Masucci tracked down Martin Massucci's family during high school. He began to write to them, sending letters regularly on Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Christmas. In 1988 he met Massucci's father, who was in California on a business trip.

Over the years, Art Massucci has met or received letters and bracelets from almost 100 people who have worn his brother's bracelet.

"There have been a million stories over the years from people who have had the bracelet," he said. "They are all connected somehow and found their way back."

Even when military personnel are missing, they receive their promotions when they are due. Massucci was promoted to captain in 1967, major in 1974.

The not-for-profit National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia reports 1,798 Americans are still missing from the Vietnam War.

Recovery effort goes on

The task of recovering those soldiers falls to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, based at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

The command has four bases across Southeast Asia, and teams conduct roughly 10 missions a year, each lasting 35 to 60 days. Any remains found are returned home with full military honors.

Four expeditions were conducted in the 1990s to the site where Massucci's plane went down. Investigators found the wreckage of jet engines with serial numbers that confirm it was the plane flown by Massucci.

But no human remains were found.

According to the military authorities, Massucci's official status is killed in action, remains not recovered. The case remains open.

"We all realize some of us will just never know what happened," Art Massucci said. "It seems like we are on that path."

Sunday, on the 41st anniversary of that day, those of us who knew of him only through his bracelet will remember and honor him.